Introduction:
“Why don’t you call me anymore?” – Mom
Since it’s a different time all around the world, it gets very difficult to track down what time to call my parents or what time to watch the soccer game live from the UK. With this timezone clock- you are able to press on a specific country, and it will display the time in that country.
Living in the U.S has made me realize how many of my shows and soccer games I was missing so I designed this timezone world lamp to help me know what time it is in another country.
Understanding Spheres & 2D Patterns.
By comparing a map and a globe, I realized that a 2D pattern would not make sense in a 3D globe. The geography looks totally different between the two because spheres are deceptively simple. I tried multiple spheres patterns to test out how it would fit on a globe.
Essentially, it’s mathematically impossible to get the visuals from a globe to lie distortion free in a rectangular 2D pattern. To calculate the size of the print, i sized the circumference of the globe to match longitudinally to the size of the pattern.
To replicate this pattern onto any spheres, measure the diameter of the globe and then scale the length of the pattern to match the diameter.
Building the Circuit
For the capacitive touch sensor, I used the 8-Key Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout. Using the instructions from the Adafruit website, I was able to wire up and use the test code instructions. For the screen display, I used the Standard LCD 16×2. Test both the
Because I am using two i2c devices, I had to change the address for one of them. We do this to connect a bridge to the solder pads. The diagram on Adafruit shows how to perform this carefully. The code also needs to match so we need to adjust it accordingly.
Now we can connect the data and clock lines in parallel. The diagram shows it with two different i2c devices but with a different microcontroller board.
Write the Code and Test the Connections
Link to instructables: https://www.instructables.com/Timezone-World-Lamp/
Bill of materials
- Arduino Uno and solderless breadboard
- ESP8266 dev Board – Huzzah board
- Copper Foil Tape with Conductive Adhesive – 6mm x 15 meter roll Adafruit
- CAP1188 – 8 Key Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout – 12C or SPI Adafruit
- Standard LCD 16×2 + extras – white on blue Adafruit
- i2c / SPI character LCD backpack Adafruit
- 7-15/16 in. White Acrylic Globe with 4 in. Fitter from Home Depot
- Laser cutter
- Vinyl printer
- Soldering iron
- Solder Wire strippers
- Conductive tape
- Neopixel from adafruit
- 3 female-female jumper wires.
Tools:
- X-Acto Knife
- Ruler
- Sharpie
- Printer
- Cutting mat
- Masking tape
- USB cable